It is the poor who have broken Britain, and the rich who are goign to make it great.

@1 – Social Darwinism all over again!

Is the best way to say Britain is Great by having an English King on the poster?

Last time I checked there was no great in England and I wouldn’t call Henry VIII great either.

@3. Nicola

Henry VIII? I thought it was Eric Pickles after a bad night.

It’s hilarious really. The Tories probably think this is great marketing. Great Britain It’s all about the past innit! If we are talking about investment don’t we want to show our potential for the future, not some old king, whose effectiveness the historians can argue over. A young engineering graduate with a piece of futuristic looking tech would be better.

And what about family values……

Henry VIII. Inherited a prosperous country and ran it into the ground. Morbidly obese. Died of gluttony aged 55. Six wives, executed two, numerous mistresses. Executed Sir Thomas More and many others. Founded own church to get his own may. Dissolved monasteries and gave the land to his chums in exchange for their support. A fine advert for Britain

Why yes, I am *so* going to photoshop Cameron’s picture into that poster.

This is very simple, Sunny. In the wonderful yesteryear that exists only in the nostalgic imaginations of Cameron’s voter base (when beer was a penny a pint, the local bobby would always get off his bike for a chat, and you could go years without seeing a black face), Britain was the greatest of great places. These days there’s all these youngun’s messing up the place, we don’t play the national anthem in cinemas anymore, and people have started having sex with one another, so it’s obviously broken.

One of the other posters exclaims:

Entrepreneurs are Great Britain!

… with Richard Branson in full ‘man for all seasons’ pose and the quote: “The EASIEST PLACE TO SET UP A BUSINESS IN EUROPE”

Thank fuck we’re not burdened with red tape and bureaucracy, eh?

@9 – Right.

http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings

We’re even ahead of the US!

What on earth does Cameron know about real society? He is probably the most socially illiterate person in the UK.

6. Schmidt

Henry VIII. Inherited a prosperous country and ran it into the ground. Morbidly obese. Died of gluttony aged 55. Six wives, executed two, numerous mistresses. Executed Sir Thomas More and many others. Founded own church to get his own may. Dissolved monasteries and gave the land to his chums in exchange for their support.

So he wasn’t all bad then. Frankly we would be better off with a morbindly obese glutton who went through wives like Klennex and executed the odd pain in the arse intellectual than with the trite, banal, gutless, callow children with no beliefs or convictions outside a Focus Group that we have now.

The founding of new Churches and the dissolution of the monasteries we have. In the sense that we mainly make up our values as we go along and almost every public institution we have has been looted either by the management transferring all the wealth therein to their salaries and pension funds or by privatisation.

8. Chaise Guevara

This is very simple, Sunny. In the wonderful yesteryear that exists only in the nostalgic imaginations of Cameron’s voter base (when beer was a penny a pint, the local bobby would always get off his bike for a chat, and you could go years without seeing a black face), Britain was the greatest of great places. These days there’s all these youngun’s messing up the place, we don’t play the national anthem in cinemas anymore, and people have started having sex with one another, so it’s obviously broken.

The problem with such obvious and trite cynical sneering is that it merely covers the facts that we all know – Britain has changed massively and largely for the worse. Britain is, in fact, broken. I can only assume that this superficial dig at your fellow countryman is some form of psychological consolation so you do not have to acknowledge that fact.

@13/14 – Ah yes, executing people is always an answer for the far right isn’t it.

Britain’s broken, yes. The government’s dropped it, and the appraiser keeps on marking it down, but it won’t sell…

@9: “Entrepreneurs are Great Britain!”

Really? Readers here must have missed the news, Tata, an Indian company which owns Jaguar LandRover, has overtaken BAE Systems, the armaments manufacturers, to become the largest manufacturing company in Britain.

So much for British enterprise.

@ 13 SMFS

“The problem with such obvious and trite cynical sneering is that it merely covers the facts that we all know – Britain has changed massively and largely for the worse. Britain is, in fact, broken. I can only assume that this superficial dig at your fellow countryman is some form of psychological consolation so you do not have to acknowledge that fact.”

Relax, dude. I don’t throw psychobabble at you by way of conversation. Yeah, it was obvious, trite and superficial. I fully accept that my above post contributed fuck all to the conversation, it was just a bit of sarky jest.

However, I really don’t see that Britain has changed significantly for the worse, much less that it’s broken. This isn’t failure to acknowledge, I genuinely don’t see how it’s changed negatively. If anything, it seems to gradually be getting better. This was kinda why I was taking the piss in the first place – everyone seems to be convinced that the world was a better place twenty years ago, when they were that much younger and the world was full of song and joy. It’s rose-tinted nostalgia. I don’t buy it.

@ 15 Bob B

To be fair, Tata are almost terrifying in their ability to be awesome at everything.

@15 – Because of course international large companies are the only entrepreneurs you bother to notice. Right.

@16 – Then you’re not looking at the asset stripping.

@17: “To be fair, Tata are almost terrifying in their ability to be awesome at everything.”

For the avoidance of any residual doubt, I’m in no way denigrating or demeaning Tata, merely pointing out that this Indian company is now the largest manufacturing company in Britain when Britain’s economy, in terms of national GDP, is still substantially larger than that of India.

The implications of that for claims made about British enterprise are rather sad – and perhaps worth looking into. Part of the reasons relate to the poor infrastructure in Britain for vocational training in technical skills to technician standards and also to the historic challenges that university engineering departments have had in attracting quality applications to fill undergraduate places. It has long been more difficult to get a place at Oxford to read for an engineering degree than to read Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

Admittedly, Henry VIII was not the most appealing – or competent – of England’s monarchs but he left us the crucial legacy of an independent Church of England, free of the stultifying influence of the Church of Rome, and he was father of Elizabeth I, one of England’s most illustrious monarchs.

Consider how Newton would have fared had England stayed a Catholic country – or had Mary Tudor, Henry’s first born daughter, been more successful in restoring Catholicism to her realm. The Catholic chuch only exonerated Galileo in 1992 for publicising his heretical theory that the earth went round the sun.

Correction: “It has long been more difficult to get a place at Oxford to read for an engineering degree than to read Politics, Philosophy and Economics.”

That should have read: “It has long been more difficult to get a place at Oxford to read Politics, Philosophy and Economics than to read for an engineering degree.”

19. Bob B

The implications of that for claims made about British enterprise are rather sad – and perhaps worth looking into.

Indeed. And isn’t the most common surname for British millionaires now Patel? British companies have been started by immigrants for a long time.

Part of the reasons relate to the poor infrastructure in Britain for vocational training in technical skills to technician standards and also to the historic challenges that university engineering departments have had in attracting quality applications to fill undergraduate places.

Except Tata is investing here. Not the other way around. So there is nothing wrong with the skills of British workers or engineers.

Consider how Newton would have fared had England stayed a Catholic country – or had Mary Tudor, Henry’s first born daughter, been more successful in restoring Catholicism to her realm. The Catholic chuch only exonerated Galileo in 1992 for publicising his heretical theory that the earth went round the sun.

Sorry but this is a liberal site isn’t it? Shouldn’t we all agree to reject Newton’s phallocentric patriarchal anti-environmental logocentrism?

Britain isn’t broken. It’s just that today we know what’s going on. In the past crime was just as rife if not worse – people just didn’t know about it. Everyone left their doors unlocked because there was nothing in the houses worth stealing. – since fencing electrical goods became unprofitable, burgalry rates have plummetted, which underlines the point

Violence was an everyday occurence but it wasn’t called violence then – it was called discipline and settling your differences like men.

Typical right wing rewriting of history here – Sunny is spot on

22. chris

Britain isn’t broken. It’s just that today we know what’s going on. In the past crime was just as rife if not worse – people just didn’t know about it. Everyone left their doors unlocked because there was nothing in the houses worth stealing. – since fencing electrical goods became unprofitable, burgalry rates have plummetted, which underlines the point

Again the delusion of the left on this issue is bizarre. When in 1904 London had just four gun-related crimes, we know that a lot has changed. You can’t hide people with great big gun shot wounds in them. We know that murder has massively increased – despite ambulances and doctors saving vastly more lives these days than in the past. You can stick your head in the sand all you like, the fact remains crime has massively increased.

Houses had nothing you might consider worth stealing. But as people at that time owned little by modern standards and so had different standards of what a wealth of goods looked like, people stole. Not many of them of course because criminals were jailed, but some. Just as crime is a problem in Africa even if people are lucky to own a bucket.

Violence was an everyday occurence but it wasn’t called violence then – it was called discipline and settling your differences like men.

Time to return to such halycon days. It isn’t a crime if it is discipline.

Typical right wing rewriting of history here – Sunny is spot on

Lol.

@10

Not quite sure if you’re being sarcastic or not, since the site you linked to agrees with J’s point (in setting up business, the UK is ranked 17th behind the US and Ireland).

Remember how Cameron said Britain didn’t have a broken economy but it did have a broken society? Since the exact opposite turned out to be true, shouldn’t we question his judgement?

@21: “And isn’t the most common surname for British millionaires now Patel? British companies have been started by immigrants for a long time. ”

C’mon. Dyson and vaccum cleaners? Lynch and Autonomy, which Hewlett Packard are now buying?

“Except Tata is investing here. Not the other way around. So there is nothing wrong with the skills of British workers or engineers.”

Except that there aren’t enough of them and there are too few world class British engineering companies. Look what happened with Alfred Herbert, ICL, The Rootes Group, the Rover Group, ICI, Marconi, Thorn EMI etc.

What is remarkable is the lack of violence compared to the past. Our ancestors were a pretty violent lot, probably something to do with all that religious belief. The long term historical trend for murder is that it has been in decline for centuries. Murders per head of population is what we would want to look at not total numbers of murders. Chris is quite right that the availability of consumer goods will be a determinant of crime rates. Quite difficult to secure convictions for stealing cars before the invention of cars. The UK police charged no one with stealing a mobile phone before the invention of mobile phones.

” Research on the history of crime from the thirteenth century until the end of the twentieth has burgeoned and has greatly increased understanding of historical trends in crime and crime control. Serious interpersonal violence decreased remarkably in Europe between the mid-sixteenth and the early twentieth centuries. ”

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/postgraduate/taughtma/mamodules/hi971/topics/interpersonal/long-term-historical-trends-of-violent-crime.pdf

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/06/long-term-trend-in-homicide-rates.html

How times change. Try this news item from last year:

“A vicar has revived an ancient law to call members of her parish together for archery practice. The Reverend Mary Edwards, of Collingbourne Ducis, near Marlborough, called residents to the village recreation ground on Friday.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10300924

Someone checked: evidently the medieval law still stands and the vicar is fully entitled to summons parishioners for archery practice. In medieval times, the English longbow was an inexpensive weapons system for warfare and easy to emulate but its effective use depended on skill and practice so there was a raft of laws encouraging archers to develop and maintain their archery skills:

“Cause public proclamation to be made,” declared an Act of 1369,”that everyone of said City of London strong in body, at leisure times and on holydays, use in their recreation bows and arrows.” Popular amusements such as handball and football were banned on pain of imprisonment. [See entry for "Archery" in Weinreb and Hibbert (eds): The London Encyclopaedia (1993)]

This was for wars with France – such as Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415) where the deployment of archers by the English armies in France was decisive.

The interesting insight is that the authorities in England were evidently unconcerned at the prospect of any number of skilled archers wandering around on their way to and from archery practice when the long bow was a potentially lethal weapon.

@ 28 Bob B

“The interesting insight is that the authorities in England were evidently unconcerned at the prospect of any number of skilled archers wandering around on their way to and from archery practice when the long bow was a potentially lethal weapon.”

Well, probably not so much that they were unconcerned as that the benefits far outweighed the danger. Especially considering that human lives weren’t considered all that valuable during the period.

@26 – Be a lot less when so many Universities will be closing down departments next year.

@29 – I’d comment on your revisionism, but you’d just threaten me again.

@ 30

Seriously, either point out this threat I allegedly made, or admit that you’re lying to get attention. Inventing things about other posters and then trolling them with it is extremely childish. I haven’t done anything to you, so I’m really not sure why you’re following me around and repeating malicious lies about me.

Saying Britain is broken is always going to be ridiculous. But you could ask that question about specific localities and it would be more of a conversation..
Them estates in Salford where the rioters came from look pretty broken.

Donal MacIntyre on Newsnight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nANGUIJNzy0

@29 Chaise: “Well, probably not so much that they were unconcerned as that the benefits far outweighed the danger. Especially considering that human lives weren’t considered all that valuable during the period.”

Apart from maverick robbers like Robin Hood and followers in Sherwood Forest in the 13th century and the historically more significant Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, the practised archers around seem to have caused little domestic trouble.

@32 – Why? Our economy is broken and it’s dragging millions down into misery, winter without enough money for both heating and lighting, and this government’s plans are set to keep slashing money away from the poor.

@31 – You think I’m THAT dumb? No, I am not. And the malicious lie is your denying your threat. Again, done with you in this thread, you’re revisionist about *everything*.

@ 34 Leon

You think explaining yourself is “dumb”? You totally fail to make sense. Whatever: if there was any basis to your claim, you’d have said so. You’re just another troll who thinks it’s clever to annoy strangers on the internet. Please take your childish and frankly offensive behaviour elsewhere.

@ 34

Oh, and saying someone threatened yu when they didn’t is pretty bloody revisionist. And ridiculous too, when anyone can look up the thread and see that you’re lying.

Pathetic. Like everyone else, I have plenty disagreements on this site, but even people who see the world differently normally have the decency and honesty not to make up malicious lies to attack people with.

@ 33 Bob B

“Apart from maverick robbers like Robin Hood and followers in Sherwood Forest in the 13th century and the historically more significant Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, the practised archers around seem to have caused little domestic trouble.”

Regarding Robin Hood and friends, I have to add the caveat that they didn’t exist (at least in the form of the legend we know now), but I admit I’m pretty ignorant on the Peasant’s revolt. To be honest, I assumed it was all pitchforks and torches rather than bows… which suggests I’m getting my presumptions from television again.

23
1904 was also a good year for avoiding traffic jams.

Well if you’re trying to make people invest in Britain, of course you’re going to emphasise the good points. I’m not sure what point the OP is trying to make.

@37: Chaise

There was almost certainly somebody (or somebodies) called Robin Hood but the sparse historic records don’t accord with the popular legend. A Channel 4 programme in 2003 went into the historiography with care and in some depth:
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/n-s/robin02.html

There seems to be a strong historic case for an outlaw character called Robin Hood who lived out in the then forested area between Wakefield and Doncaster in Yorkshire in the 13th century. The bottom line is that Robin Hood is now claimed by both Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire.

The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was extensive and historically significant – the revolt is sometimes taken as the breaking point of feudalism in England and, with Magna Carta of 1215, as among the early milestones in a radical theme running through English history. The revolt was put down – brutally but successfully.

Feudalism and feudal relationships seem to have withered sooner in England than in most of the rest of Europe with cash transactions taking over from traditional feudal dues provided by working on demesne lands, especially so following the ravages of the Black Death (plague) of 1348/9. Modern estimates put the mortality rate from the Black Death at between a quarter and a third of the population (really!) – some villages ceased to be inhabited and became ruins.

The ensuing scarcity of labour as the result of the plauge often made it impossible for feudal landlords to exact traditional feudal dues for the cultivation of manorial demesne lands so they had to hire labour and wage rates rose because of the scarcity of labour. The Statute of Labourers of 1351 attempted to put a statutory cap on wage rates ! An early, real example of a statutory incomes policy.

There’s a long entry on the Peasant’s Revolt in Wikipedia which reports of some of radical themes and rhetoric motivating the rebellion.

26. Bob B

C’mon. Dyson and vaccum cleaners? Lynch and Autonomy, which Hewlett Packard are now buying?

Well not exclusively by immigrants then. But it is noticable that immigrants are disproportionately represented among new start ups and have been for over 100 years. The desire for entrepreneurship is not strong among British people. Especially in places where it used to be strong like Scotland.

Except that there aren’t enough of them and there are too few world class British engineering companies. Look what happened with Alfred Herbert, ICL, The Rootes Group, the Rover Group, ICI, Marconi, Thorn EMI etc. </??

What is remarkable is the lack of violence compared to the past. Our ancestors were a pretty violent lot, probably something to do with all that religious belief. The long term historical trend for murder is that it has been in decline for centuries.

Right up to 1950 or so. When it started to climb again.

Chris is quite right that the availability of consumer goods will be a determinant of crime rates. Quite difficult to secure convictions for stealing cars before the invention of cars. The UK police charged no one with stealing a mobile phone before the invention of mobile phones.

Sure. But he is not right because while theft of mobile phones may have leapt, theft of horses has declined. Actually I bet it hasn’t. That is why no one looks at such specific crimes but things like theft as a whole. Which is massively more common than it was in the 1950s.

” Research on the history of crime from the thirteenth century until the end of the twentieth has burgeoned and has greatly increased understanding of historical trends in crime and crime control. Serious interpersonal violence decreased remarkably in Europe between the mid-sixteenth and the early twentieth centuries. ”

And the early twentieth centuries. Sure. And then it has increased in leap and bounds. The fewer people we jail, the more crime we have.

38. steveb

1904 was also a good year for avoiding traffic jams.

I am not sure that is true. Traffic jams can be (and were) caused by other things besides cars. Even if my memory is too fallible to be sure, records from the time show horses and carts causing traffic jams. Worse than that really.

@41 – America disproves your statement. If you invent even more crimes, you have ever more people to jail.

Meanwhile, the Nordic countries have very low crimes rates, relatively few crimes and need few jails. We’re the incarceration capital of Europe, something which is a major denouncement of our police and legal system.

@41 So Much: “The desire for entrepreneurship is not strong among British people.”

I’m unclear what the historic evidence for that claim is – especially with Britain’s pioneering industrial revolution along with our long history of empire building and exploration (eg the search for the source of the Nile) – and what the remedy could be if it is more or less true nowadays.

Prior to the financial crisis, general government expenditures – or the tax burden – relative to Britain’s GDP were not particularly high by west European standards. And Britain’s economy was not unduly regulated by European standards. Many continental west European countries tend to have more generous welfare benefits systems.

“[The companies] were so good someone bought them?”

Unlike the recent splendid example of Dyson, Autonomy – or,say, ARM Holdings – most of the companies I listed @26 simply failed.

Arguably, the reasons were at least as much due to failures in management as entrepreneurship. There were and are shortages of technical skills but Japanese and German motor manufacturers can run successful car manufacturing operations in Britain even if British and American companies can’t. Cultures may be part of the story.

In one of those “competitiveness” assessments by a government department in the early 1990s, it turned out that the percentage of graduates with science + engineering degrees was about the same in both Britain and Japan. But the percentage of graduates with engineering degrees was substantially larger in Japan, while the percentage of graduates with science degrees was larger in Britain. I’ve mentioned before that British universities have been challenged to attract quality applications for places to read for engineering degrees. As for quality of higher education institutions, Britain has a disproportionate share of the best rated in international league tables. And we rate well on Nobel prizes per capita and on citation indices for the sciences.

Another factor is that a string of studies through to the 1980s concluded that managers in British companies tend to be underqualified (educated) compared with their continental counterparts. As for the public sector, we don’t have a counterpart to L’École Nationale d’Administration in France. Most of France’s political leaders and the CEOs of public sector enterprises and institutions there are graduates of that school.

A credible story is that too much high-powered risk-taking management, scientific talent is sucked into financial services because of the massive rewards there.

For the avoidance of doubt, my point @9 – “‘Entrepreneurs are Great Britain!’ – thank fuck we’re not burdened with red tape and bureaucracy, eh?” – was not in any way supportive of the poorly-conceived and vomit-inducing marketing guff expounded by Cameron and his ilk…

Rather, I meant to draw attention to the fact that the justification for the coalition destroying regulatory authorities and jobs, eviscerating the public sector etc. in the name of removing “red tape” is all a load of shite if they are simultaneously suffering verbal diarrhoea in bigging up the ease of establishing business(es) in this country.

Cognitive dissonance much?

43. Leon Wolfson

America disproves your statement. If you invent even more crimes, you have ever more people to jail.

Well that is not true. Britain has been inventing ever more crimes for the past few decades but we can’t be bothered jailing people for them. America shows that if you take crime seriously you have a short term spike in numbers, but over the longer term, crime numbers and prison places drop as people are deterred. It is Britain that does not punish anyone for anything that has ever more criminals. New York is closing prisons.

Meanwhile, the Nordic countries have very low crimes rates, relatively few crimes and need few jails. We’re the incarceration capital of Europe, something which is a major denouncement of our police and legal system.

We jail fewer people per crime than virtually anyone. The Nordic countries did not have large scale immigration until recently. Nor did they have broken social structures until recently. They will catch up. They are as we speak.

44. Bob B

I’m unclear what the historic evidence for that claim is – especially with Britain’s pioneering industrial revolution along with our long history of empire building and exploration (eg the search for the source of the Nile) – and what the remedy could be if it is more or less true nowadays.

I am not making a historical argument. Is not was. Sure, we used to. We don’t any more.

Prior to the financial crisis, general government expenditures – or the tax burden – relative to Britain’s GDP were not particularly high by west European standards. And Britain’s economy was not unduly regulated by European standards. Many continental west European countries tend to have more generous welfare benefits systems.

And they are hardly better off. With the exception of a small number of mobile phone companies, virtually no European stock market is dominated by new start ups. Unlike the US where new companies are prominent.

Another factor is that a string of studies through to the 1980s concluded that managers in British companies tend to be underqualified (educated) compared with their continental counterparts.

Again I am not sure that a comparison with the corporatist structures of Europe makes sense. The bigger problem is that we do not have college-drop outs like Steven Jobs or Bill Gates. Well, that Virgin guy.

As for the public sector, we don’t have a counterpart to L’École Nationale d’Administration in France. Most of France’s political leaders and the CEOs of public sector enterprises and institutions there are graduates of that school.

Good for us. Bad luck for them. The Polytechnique is something we may need but ENA? No.

@ 41. So Much For Subtlety

” Right up to 1950 or so. When it started to climb again. ”

And then started to decline again during the 1990s. That really was my point of looking at such things in long term historical trends. Depending on where you start as your reference point the message to take from data can be quite misleading. Apart from blips that may last 30 years, the long term trend for murder in Western Europe and North America is downwards.

I would say that the explanation for the fall in the murder rate in WE and NA over the last 20 years has very little to do with the diverse criminal justice systems. Demographics explains the trend as it does most things. Quite simply the fertility decline of previous decades meant that there were fewer young males around in the age group when they are most violent. Fifty five year old murderers of either sex are outliers. Twenty five year old males are much more likely to be involved or be a victim of violence that leads to a murder. Therefore, if that demographic falls through a previous decline in fertility, then so will the murder rate. Fewer young males = less violence = fewer murders.

Imagine we rounded up all 55-75 year old males and locked them up. There would be almost no discernible effect on violent crime rates. If we did the same thing thing with 15-35 year old males? Violent crime would plunge. No the moral is not to lock up all 15-35 year old males, SMFS. If you have a fall in the total amount of the age group that are likely to be involved in violence as a perpetrator or victim, then the ratio of murders will also fall. Obviously there are exceptions, however, young males are likely to attack other young males, not so much 25 year olds attacking 55 year olds. Therefore, the 1990s fall in the murder rate was entirely predictable from the 1970s fertility rate and was reverting to the long term decline. The period of the blip was when there was an abundance of young males in the age group when they are most likely to be violent.

@46 – They’re closing prisons because they’re starting to back off on the War on Drugs. Correlation does not imply the causation you are claiming.

And your claim that the Nordic countries is broken is typical of your nonsense.

47. Richard W

And then started to decline again during the 1990s.

Right after Michael Howard announced prison works. It does.

That really was my point of looking at such things in long term historical trends. Depending on where you start as your reference point the message to take from data can be quite misleading. Apart from blips that may last 30 years, the long term trend for murder in Western Europe and North America is downwards.

Blips? Or to put it another way, as detection got better and punishment more certain, crime dropped. Then we decided not to punish the poor victims of society any more and crime rose. Then we had a tiny backlash and started to jail slightly more people than before and crime dropped. But I will agree the long term trend in general has been for a more certain punishment and hence fewer people have been willing to chance it.

I would say that the explanation for the fall in the murder rate in WE and NA over the last 20 years has very little to do with the diverse criminal justice systems. Demographics explains the trend as it does most things. Quite simply the fertility decline of previous decades meant that there were fewer young males around in the age group when they are most violent.

I suspect you are right in part – but populations have been declining in the West for a long time.

No the moral is not to lock up all 15-35 year old males, SMFS.

And yet that is the way we are going.

48. Leon Wolfson

They’re closing prisons because they’re starting to back off on the War on Drugs. Correlation does not imply the causation you are claiming.

No they are not. No one has backed off the War on Drugs – although the War is slowly being won. And the actual amount of crime is dropping.

And your claim that the Nordic countries is broken is typical of your nonsense.

Actually I thought I said they weren’t. Yet. But they will be.

@49 – Okay, facts are not facts when they’re inconvenient for your platform. Got it. And “won”, right.

…

Next!

Is Greece Broken? One could surely say yes. There are parts of Britain like Greece are there not? Where they are just not functioning in the way that capitalism requires, and constantly need to be bailed out by the centre. I live in one such place, where the jobs market absolutely sucks, and a whole section of the society just live off the state.

@46: “With the exception of a small number of mobile phone companies, virtually no European stock market is dominated by new start ups. Unlike the US where new companies are prominent.”

European countries, with the possible exception of the Netherlands, do lag the US in labour productivity per hour worked but Britain lags the average for G7 countries. That is a cause for concern but we seem unable to find a prescription for catching up. This Eurostat league table for per capita GDP in 2010 at PPS exchange rates shows Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries as better ranked than Britain despite more equal distributions of incomes and higher tax burdens:
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/2-21062011-AP/EN/2-21062011-AP-EN.PDF

I’m unconvinced that the rate of start-ups matters a lot – since start-ups have high five-year failure rates – rather than having solid manufacturing companies like Siemens, Bosch and Braun in Germany or the string of successful electronic-electrical engineering companies in Japan like Panasonic (Matsushita), Hitachi, Fujitsu, Sony, Canon and, of course, Japan’s motor manufacturers.

There is also research (American) that there is a correlation with the level of crime for monetary gain and unemployment and low wages.
It appears that crimes such as rape and murder (not for monetary gain) are not affected by observable environmental changes, which implies a good case for suggesting causality.
Richard W@27 is correct, one of the largest growing crimes is computer crime, my guess is because we can be ‘robbed’ by people on the other side of the globe with little risk to the perpetrator, making it more attractive than highway robbery. The thing is, this is then recorded as a crime in this country.

@53: “The thing is, this [computer fraud] is then recorded as a crime in this country.”

Good point. My local LibDem controlled borough council is fond of claiming that the borough is a “low crime area” as though that is due to the splendid political management of the borough council. The interesting insight is that much of the massive phone hacking done for the NOW was conducted by a locally resident “private investigator” who was reportedly paid a retainer of £10,000 a month. For some reason, that doesn’t count as crime perpetrated in the borough.

52. Bob B

European countries, with the possible exception of the Netherlands, do lag the US in labour productivity per hour worked but Britain lags the average for G7 countries.

They and we count differently. I am not sure this is such an important indicator anyway. It certainly is not what I was talking about.

This Eurostat league table for per capita GDP in 2010 at PPS exchange rates shows Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries as better ranked than Britain despite more equal distributions of incomes and higher tax burdens

Although PPP measures are dubious.

I’m unconvinced that the rate of start-ups matters a lot – since start-ups have high five-year failure rates

No but having the Fortune 5090 dominated by so many of them is certainly a good thing. It is not the rate of start ups – which is probably much the same everywhere as most start ups are small family owned businesses like corner shops and the like. It is their chances of growing.

rather than having solid manufacturing companies like Siemens, Bosch and Braun in Germany or the string of successful electronic-electrical engineering companies in Japan like Panasonic (Matsushita), Hitachi, Fujitsu, Sony, Canon and, of course, Japan’s motor manufacturers.

In the same way the House of Lords means there is no need for the House of Commons. After all, we have solid established political families to run our affairs for us. What is the need for democracy?

That is all well and nice if they consistently get it right. If they get it wrong, they take down a large and irreplaceable part of the economy. And worse they hold their position through Europe’s habitual soft-corporatism. Without friends in the government you cannot be the next Bill Gates. The government, big business and the Unions have it all sewn up. That is not good. Unless you think that social mobility is a bad thing?

53. steveb

There is also research (American) that there is a correlation with the level of crime for monetary gain and unemployment and low wages.

Although the recent down turn in America is proving that wrong as there has been no spike in crimes. These studies are usually expressions of the researchers’ prejudices and little more.

@55: “Although PPP measures are dubious.”

But making cross-country per capita GDP comparisons using market exchange rates are even more dubious.

“In the same way the House of Lords means there is no need for the House of Commons. After all, we have solid established political families to run our affairs for us. What is the need for democracy?”

C’mon. That an invalid analogy. Relatively big, long established manufacturing companies can be hugely successful innovators as Japan’s motor manufacturers and electronics companies have shown. The fact is that start-ups do have high failure rates. The reasons for Microsoft’s success are complex. The reasons include the sheer size of the American market as compared with a European market fragmented by language differences, borders and so on. The success of American companies with microprocessors owes much to initial under-pinning support for the technical and market risks from US military spending and spending for space exploration.

Btw the House of Lords has little power to block or amend government legislation. It is a much weaker second chamber than the US Senate or Germany’s Bundesrat, both of which have effective blocking powers.

“The government, big business and the Unions have it all sewn up. That is not good. Unless you think that social mobility is a bad thing?”

Britain has a bad record for social mobility but note the impressive ranking of Netherlands and Scandinavian countries in GDP league tables from OECD as well as Eurostat despite their higher tax burdens and more equal distributions of income.

55
I was using the American research to extrapolate that environmental factors affect crime rates and the types of crime commited, obviously it was too subtle, so much for that.
America has far more deaths from gun crime than the UK, but this is also down to environmental factors (more people own guns in the US).
In my own area, which has suffered high youth unemployment since the 1980s, there has been a vast increase in drug use and petty theft amongst young males.
Instead of overcrowding our prisons (a university for crime), we need to be looking at environmental factors, y’know the causes of crime.
I can never understand why the right seem to prefer crime and punishment to deterrent.

@ 49. So Much For Subtlety

Right after Michael Howard announced prison works. It does.

Michael Howard’s remit only covered the UK. Yet, no matter what criminal justice policies were followed the murder rate fell all over Western Europe and North America at the same time. That is why I say one has to look at demography.

On a certain level prison does work. Whether it is the most effective use of monetary and human capital resources is the real question.

@ 57

“I can never understand why the right seem to prefer crime and punishment to deterrent.”

I think this is a form of political correctness sometimes: saying that socioeconomic factors drive people to crime is seen as unacceptable as it’s “sympathising with the criminal”, regardless of whether it’s actually true. Here, as elsewhere, people make factual claims based on emotional preferences (and no, we liberal’s ain’t innocent of that either).

“I can never understand why the right seem to prefer crime and punishment to deterrent.”

There’s a word for it in German: Schadenfreude
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude

Otherwise, it’s nostalgia:

“Some thirty-five thousand people were condemned to death in England and Wales between 1770 and 1830, and seven thousand were ultimately executed, the majority convicted of crimes such as burglary, horse theft, or forgery. Mostly poor trades people, these terrified men and women would suffer excruciating death before large and excited crowds.”
V. A. C. Gatrell: The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People 1770-1868

A village I’m England has just been called the best place to grow up in.
Coincidence that it was the first time in years the BBC report was full of just English?
No Somali gunmen, drunk East Europeans, Yardie gangsters, Wigga/Chavs, Iic ghettos, Tinker land grabbers and general 3rd world unemployed getting drunk in the local park on a weekday.
Coincidence not. Britain was great once. Now it no longer really exists…at least for the English, except for little safe havens like this most English of villages.

I thank you.

And oh yeah…not a veil or mosque in sight.

Is that England and Britain in the same rant? Oh dear… do make you mind up! Next thing you will be ranting about all the Scots and Welsh coming to take real proper English village jobs, like yeomen, blacksmiths and candlestick makers. Now where are my Morris-dancing clogs … .

@ 63 Rob

Be fair. It’s hard to maintain consistency when you’re foaming at the mouth with rage and stupidity and screaming in terror every time you see a brown person.

56. Bob B

C’mon. That an invalid analogy. Relatively big, long established manufacturing companies can be hugely successful innovators as Japan’s motor manufacturers and electronics companies have shown.

It is totally valid. Britain’s Upper Class are also great political innovators. As Tony Benn could tell you.

The fact is that start-ups do have high failure rates.

So do most elected politicians. Until Blair killed it, the House of Lords was the only part of the British constitution that was working properly and yet was well thought of by the population.

The success of American companies with microprocessors owes much to initial under-pinning support for the technical and market risks from US military spending and spending for space exploration.

People keep saying this but I doubt it is true.

Britain has a bad record for social mobility but note the impressive ranking of Netherlands and Scandinavian countries in GDP league tables from OECD as well as Eurostat despite their higher tax burdens and more equal distributions of income.

Not to mention their Grammar schools. Which has been the main factor imo.

57. steveb

I was using the American research to extrapolate that environmental factors affect crime rates and the types of crime commited, obviously it was too subtle, so much for that.

Really? I thought you made the simple claim that unemployment and low wages causes crime. Which America at the moment is showing is not true. Crime has continued to drop even as the economy tanks.

America has far more deaths from gun crime than the UK, but this is also down to environmental factors (more people own guns in the US).

No it isn’t. It is a cultural thing. Canada has high gun ownership and it does not have a high gun death rate. Nor does Switzerland. America is violent because Americans think violence is acceptable. No other reason. Notice that gun ownership and concealed carry, even open carry, permits are increasing but crime continues to drop in the US.

In my own area, which has suffered high youth unemployment since the 1980s, there has been a vast increase in drug use and petty theft amongst young males.

You are assuming causation. There is no reason to think there is.

Instead of overcrowding our prisons (a university for crime), we need to be looking at environmental factors, y’know the causes of crime.

We have tried this. We know the answer – the cause of crime is criminals. We need to make a life of crime less attractive to young people who still have a chance of a normal life. But those that have become feral have nothing to offer the rest of us any more, nor is there anything we can do for them except jail them indefinitely. If prison is a university of crime the solution is to not let anyone out.

I can never understand why the right seem to prefer crime and punishment to deterrent.

Because we have tried this experiment – the only deterrent that works is punishment. We have been trying other things since the 1960s. They have all failed. Prison works. It deters. So does the death penalty. Letting criminals go free does not.

58. Richard W

Michael Howard’s remit only covered the UK. Yet, no matter what criminal justice policies were followed the murder rate fell all over Western Europe and North America at the same time. That is why I say one has to look at demography.

But crime did not fall in Russia in this period. Yet the male population has been declining. Demography is not a be-all and end-all. Remember too that Thatcher type policies also spread across the developed world at this time. There was a small right wing backlash against the permissiveness of the 1960s and 70s.

On a certain level prison does work. Whether it is the most effective use of monetary and human capital resources is the real question.

No it isn’t because it isn’t a question. By any rational measure, it is.

59. Chaise Guevara

I think this is a form of political correctness sometimes: saying that socioeconomic factors drive people to crime is seen as unacceptable as it’s “sympathising with the criminal”, regardless of whether it’s actually true.

Except it is not true. It is also insulting to poor people, denying them agency. But basically it is not true.

@65: “Not to mention their Grammar schools. Which has been the main factor imo.”

I’ve often declared my support for grammar schools – the London borough where I live has some of the best in the country. The borough regularly comes at or near the top of local education authority league table for England based on the AVERAGE attainment of candidates in the GCSE exams for 16 y-os.

Within walking distance of where I sit are two maintained selective boys schools which achieve better average A-level results than Eton. My son went to one which I later learned was the school that Chris Woodhead, the notorious chief inspector of schools in Blunkett’s time as education secretary, had attended.

Canvassing a council estate elsewhere in the early 1970s, I came upon a Labour stalwart who defended grammar schools which, he said, were the only escape route for his grandson from the pressures of the neighbourhood peer-group culture. I didn’t agree with him then but came to appreciate that he was absolutely sane and sound.

From later experience, I came to realise that there are local councils which work to this tried and tested formula:

Poor school standards => uncertain local job prospects => entrenched Labour control of local council

@ 66 SMFS

“Except it is not true. It is also insulting to poor people, denying them agency. But basically it is not true.”

Every stat I’ve seen has shown that a poor scenario on socioeconomic factors such as income, education and job prospects is heavily correlated with the risk of an individual committing crime. I’m not sure what your basis is for denying this.

Statistics discuss trends. Saying “poor people are more likely to commit crime” is not the same as saying “this poor person will commit crime whether they want to or not”. Stats do not deny agency – they reflect reality rather than dictating it. It’s important that people understand that.

As for “insulting” – it’s up to you if you choose to be offended by the truth, but you doing so won’t make it any less true. Reality doesn’t change out of respect for your personal sensibilities.

59. Chaise Guevara

I think this is a form of political correctness sometimes: saying that socioeconomic factors drive people to crime is seen as unacceptable as it’s “sympathising with the criminal”, regardless of whether it’s actually true.

Except it is not true. It is also insulting to poor people, denying them agency.

Saying that low socio-economic status is a predictor of particular crimes does not deny agency.

But basically it is not true.

An ‘interesting’ assertion, given that the literature says otherwise.

Brown people?

I think I listed crimes/criminals and cultural criminal activity imported into the country.
I never said Jamaicans…I said Yardie gangsters.
Or are they a welcome immigration in your broken world?
I sincerely hope not!

The point I made was that the unwelcone aspects imported into this country concerning foreign religions and cultural practices that have come from massive, unchecked, come one come all, immigration is not a problem there because such immigration has not hit that village.
As such the increasingly negative and utterly unwelcome aspects of unchecked immigration have not hurt the village….and if pc leftie idiots had welcomed hard and controlled Immigration parameters then indeed immigration into that village would have been welcomed on a strictly minority basis and all would be good still.

But sadly the immigration we allow has corrupted all immigration and contaminated the positive aspects…as such, sadly, only no or minute immigration makes the village a welcome place to live.

You idiots let all immigration be contaminated by the negative aspects of immigration. People like you lot let the Yardie gangsters, for just one example, join the genuine and welcome migrants. Your unchecked migration stance has thus hurt all immigration so much that only no immigration means such a lovely place to live can exist.

Agian

@ 70

I’m sure you’ll be successful in your oh-so-honest attempts to “welcome” non-criminal immigrants when you regale them with stories about how places are nicer when they’re “full of just English”.

You no doubt were trying to make a point about crime, based on your ability to focus specially on crimes committed by immigrants. Doesn’t change my point (that you’re a racist pillock, as evidenced by your last post).

66
I have to hold my hand up to making an unsubstantiated statement (based only on common sense) so, best statistics I’ve got with a quick search on Google – In England and Wales, on average, 7% of homicides are caused by firearms. In the USA it’s 65% and in Canada 34%.
Of course, as already pointed-out, having a gun in your possession doesn’t mean that you are going to commit murder with it, there are going to be many other factors, only a fool would believe that there is a simple linear cause and effect for any behaviour. The best we could hope is to recognize any antecedents and address those.
67
Two articles in the Guardian and the fail on-line report research – ‘ Going to a Comp is no Disadvantage’ ‘Grammar schools do not improve Social Mobility for Working-Class’
As far as I am aware, the researchers were absolutely sane and sound.
70
Do you know where Christianity comes from?

68. Chaise Guevara

Every stat I’ve seen has shown that a poor scenario on socioeconomic factors such as income, education and job prospects is heavily correlated with the risk of an individual committing crime. I’m not sure what your basis is for denying this.

But you said they were *driven* to crime by poverty. A range of socioeconomic factors are correlated with crime, but not all of them. Race and culture for instance, are obvious examples of things that are also correlated with poverty but not consistently with crime. If you are a Chinese or South Asian immigrant you will likely rank low on income, education and job prospects. But you won’t on crime. Which suggests, strongly, that something else is driving that link.

Statistics discuss trends. Saying “poor people are more likely to commit crime” is not the same as saying “this poor person will commit crime whether they want to or not”. Stats do not deny agency – they reflect reality rather than dictating it. It’s important that people understand that.

Sure but you were closer to asserting causation than correlation. You stick with correlation and I will have no problems. You assert poorer people are more likely to commit crimes and I will agree. You deny poor people agency by asserting that poverty *drives* them to crime – literally a denial of agency in that they have no choice over what pushes them into it – and I will object.

As for “insulting” – it’s up to you if you choose to be offended by the truth, but you doing so won’t make it any less true. Reality doesn’t change out of respect for your personal sensibilities.

I am rarely offended by the truth. But it is simply not the case that poor people are driven into crime. You may as well say Black people are unable to control their inability to commit crime as well. Just as offensive. Just as untrue. Even stronger statistical evidence of the sort you have produced.

69. ukliberty

Saying that low socio-economic status is a predictor of particular crimes does not deny agency.

No, but he did not say that did he? So it is irrelevant.

An ‘interesting’ assertion, given that the literature says otherwise.

The literature, to put it politely, is full of sh!t. But I am pretty sure it does not say this.

@73 – “The literature, to put it politely, is full of sh!t”

The experts know nothing! Science is a distraction from emotional-based racist reactions!

…

Right.

@ 73 SMFS

“But you said they were *driven* to crime by poverty. A range of socioeconomic factors are correlated with crime, but not all of them. Race and culture for instance, are obvious examples of things that are also correlated with poverty but not consistently with crime. If you are a Chinese or South Asian immigrant you will likely rank low on income, education and job prospects. But you won’t on crime. Which suggests, strongly, that something else is driving that link.”

The fact that there are drivers other than poverty does not mean that poverty is not a driver.

“Sure but you were closer to asserting causation than correlation. You stick with correlation and I will have no problems. You assert poorer people are more likely to commit crimes and I will agree.”

It’s causative too. If you assess crime rates by race, but control for socioeconomic factors, the differences almost vanish. If you assess them by income, but control for factors like race, the differences do not vanish.

“You deny poor people agency by asserting that poverty *drives* them to crime – literally a denial of agency in that they have no choice over what pushes them into it – and I will object.”

Don’t bend my words with this selective definition of “drive”. I’ve already told you I don’t deny agency. “Drive” doesn’t mean you have no free will in the matter. A stressful week drives me to have a beer on Friday night – but it’s still my own choice.

“I am rarely offended by the truth. But it is simply not the case that poor people are driven into crime. You may as well say Black people are unable to control their inability to commit crime as well. Just as offensive. Just as untrue. Even stronger statistical evidence of the sort you have produced.”

But you said they were *driven* to crime by poverty. A range of socioeconomic factors are correlated with crime, but not all of them. Race and culture for instance, are obvious examples of things that are also correlated with poverty but not consistently with crime. If you are a Chinese or South Asian immigrant you will likely rank low on income, education and job prospects. But you won’t on crime. Which suggests, strongly, that something else is driving that link.

Statistics discuss trends. Saying “poor people are more likely to commit crime” is not the same as saying “this poor person will commit crime whether they want to or not”. Stats do not deny agency – they reflect reality rather than dictating it. It’s important that people understand that.

Sure but you were closer to asserting causation than correlation. You stick with correlation and I will have no problems. You assert poorer people are more likely to commit crimes and I will agree. You deny poor people agency by asserting that poverty *drives* them to crime – literally a denial of agency in that they have no choice over what pushes them into it – and I will object.

As for “insulting” – it’s up to you if you choose to be offended by the truth, but you doing so won’t make it any less true. Reality doesn’t change out of respect for your personal sensibilities.

I am rarely offended by the truth. But it is simply not the case that poor people are driven into crime. You may as well say Black people are unable to control their inability to commit crime as well. Just as offensive. Just as untrue. Even stronger statistical evidence of the sort you have produced.

Straw man, due to you pretending I’m denying agency despite me telling you otherwise.

Please read my post next time before replying to it, instead of citing a load of objections that I’ve already dealt with.

Sorry, there’s a double paste in there. It sort of connects up at each end.

Crime really does run in the family, according to the findings of a 35-year-long study.

Researchers at Cambridge University’s Institute of Criminology found that if children had a convicted parent by the time they were 10 that was the “best predictor” of them becoming criminal and anti- social themselves.

Half of all convictions notched up by those in the study were accounted for by 6 per cent of the families while 10 per cent of the families involved accounted for nearly two-thirds of all convictions. [February 1996]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/children-follow-convicted-parents-into-crime-1321272.html

It’s obvious that the most effective policy for preventing crime is to lock up those most likely to commit crimes.

“It’s obvious that the most effective policy for preventing crime is to lock up those most likely to commit crimes.”

Actually, it’s obvious that the most effective policy for preventing crime is to lock up absolutely everyone.

78
You forgot the heavy tranquillization.

SMFS,

The literature, to put it politely, is full of sh!t. But I am pretty sure it does not say this.

But if it did, it would be full of shit?

Hmm.

@78: “Actually, it’s obvious that the most effective policy for preventing crime is to lock up absolutely everyone.”

True enough. But we can’t afford that policy when it costs c. £45,000 a year to hold someone in secure accommodation (on government estimates) so we’ll have to make do with only locking up those most likely to become criminals because of their family connections, upbringing or DNA. The savings from reduced crime make this worth while.

@78 – Or follow Judge Death, (2000AD tastic), – dead people don’t commit crimes.

Or even eugenics, those that are not born do not commit crime.

Amusing to read about these criminals who are apparently impervious to reason and rationality, and yet somehow seem to know that crime includes a pay-off; i.e. they are rational, but asymmetrically. In other words, criminals understand that crime might make them better-off, but it is not possible to convince them that it will not; rather, their beliefs in this matter are set in stone, truly exogenous–an act of God, if you will. Solution: we must make them better-off, and then they won’t need to commit crime. Understand? No? Good.

@83 jojoj: “Or even eugenics, those that are not born do not commit crime.”

Almost but not quite. Try the Donohue-Levitt effect instead:

“The effect of legalized abortion on crime (sometimes referred to as the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis) is the subject of controversy, arising from the theory that legal abortion reduces crime. Proponents of the theory generally argue that since unwanted children are more likely to become criminals and that an inverse correlation is observed between the availability of abortion and subsequent crime. Not only that, but children born under these conditions are usually less fortunate as enough preparation was not put in place for their birth and upbringing.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect

In 2004, Professor Steven Levitt of Chicago Uni (really), was awarded the John Bates Clark medal by the American Economic Association. This medal was awarded every two years (every year from 2009) to the person reckoned to be the brightest economist under 40. Past recipients include Samuelson, Friedman, Arrow, Robert Solow, Paul Krugman, Larry Summers.

@84 vimothy: “Amusing to read about these criminals who are apparently impervious to reason and rationality, and yet somehow seem to know that crime includes a pay-off; i.e. they are rational, but asymmetrically. ”

Many decades ago I had a discussion with an economist who wrote a IEA pamphlet about whether the economic motivation for crime was rational or not.

His assessment was that for the general run of petty criminals it wasn’t rational on looking at the personal opportunity costs from lost earnings, while serving prison sentences, compared with the gains from stolen loot.

Why didn’t they give up crime if it wasn’t rational? A combination of reasons: (a) no or few skills for other trades with comparable earnings and (b) because exit routes from a career of petty crime were often blocked as employers were usually reluctant to take on unemployed workers with criminal records.

And even then, their supposed irrationality sure looks rational to me…

Of course, a lot depends on how your economist friend was defining “rationality”. If he means maximising some life-time earnings objective function, then I agree. But that’s not what I mean by rationality.

@87: “Of course, a lot depends on how your economist friend was defining “rationality”. If he means maximising some life-time earnings objective function, then I agree. ”

He was. The value of exercises like this come from the insights produced. It seemed to me that he was saying something significant in pointing to the low alternative skills of petty criminals for legitimate jobs and the blocked exit routes from criminal careers as to the reasons why petty criminals maintain criminal careers. This would account for the high rates of recidivism among those sentenced to early terms of imprisonment and the reports of (a) low literacy rates and (b) the high incidence of mental illness among prisoners.

I suspect that sentencing policy is well informed by this literature by now, which is why long sentences are handed down on convictions for big bullion robberies and bank heists to ensure that big crime doesn’t pay. But the prison system is in desperate need of reform to lower the rate of reoffending on discharge.

85
When crime is discussed, it invariably looks at crime associated with the working-class, few people associate crime with major fraud, corporate crime, illegal tax evasion, insider trading, corporate homicide etc, and not least the MPs expenses debacle.
Crime is also cultural, there are no naturally given laws, so we can board a plane in London, drink a dozen alcoholic drinks, and arrive in certain Arab countries and find that the same behaviour makes us criminal.
Over time laws change, new technology has introduced another breed of criminal, but yet we find that criminality is still associated with a certain class.
Perhaps, Professor Levitt has developed a theory which addresses why people, from apparantly affluent backgrounds, are still willing to commit crime, and, more importantly, assimilate it into an ethnic and evolutionary framework.

@89 jojo: “Perhaps, Professor Levitt has developed a theory which addresses why people, from apparantly affluent backgrounds, are still willing to commit crime, and, more importantly, assimilate it into an ethnic and evolutionary framework.”

Levitt was after explanations for the drop in recorded crime in America.

I agree about changes in the pattern of crimes, especially the rise of so called “middle class” crimes, such as fraud, which can be hugely costly to investigate, detect and to gather the evidence for a successful prosecution.

Question: how did we do it so successfully in the past? You know, before we had that century-long 50-fold increase in indictable offences? I guess we must have locked up everyone who even looked like a disaffected young male, huh. I guess Singapore does the same today. You don’t see many Singaporean emos. Probably why their streets are so clean too…

@91 vimothy: “Question: how did we do it so successfully in the past? ”

I don’t know, is the short answer. By many accounts, crime was relatively low during the interwar depression years, which should make us a bit cautious about regularly blaming crime on poverty and deprivation.

All the extra criminal offences created by the Blair government make looking at crime trends a wobbly business. A previous statistician colleague, who went off to work on crime stats in the Home Office in late 1980s, told me that making international comparisons with any precision was virtually impossible because of differing definitions.

FWIW the sections on crime in this brief from the HoC Library on: Trends in UK Statistics since 1900, sheds some light on crime trends over the long term:
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-111.pdf

The picture that emerges is certainly discomforting. My guess is that rising ownership of, or access to, motor transport, telephones and, more recently, computers are part of the story about why crime has risen on trend.

Try also this official but independent review of UK crime statistics:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110220105210/rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/crime-statistics-independent-review-06.pdf

And yet: consider Singapore. Singapore has all those things, but somehow manages not to be a crime-ridden cesspit. Might it not have more to do with people, politics, institutions, culture, etc, etc, etc? I mean, it’s not like computers are out there mugging people, is it? (Not yet anyway. But if anyone can convince the robots they’ve got a legitimate axe to grind, they surely will. Skynet is only exercising its God-given right to self-determination, doncha know.)

75. Chaise Guevara

The fact that there are drivers other than poverty does not mean that poverty is not a driver.

Except that there is no reason to think that poverty, or anything else, is a driver. How about sticking to the topic and not talking about something else? This is simply non-responsive.

It’s causative too. If you assess crime rates by race, but control for socioeconomic factors, the differences almost vanish. If you assess them by income, but control for factors like race, the differences do not vanish.

My first response to that is bollocks, but perhaps the better response is to say produce the evidence. Poor Chinese people do not commit much crime.

Don’t bend my words with this selective definition of “drive”. I’ve already told you I don’t deny agency. “Drive” doesn’t mean you have no free will in the matter. A stressful week drives me to have a beer on Friday night – but it’s still my own choice.

I am not twisting your words. Your quibbling is selective, not my objection. If you are driven to drink you have little control over it. If you are driven to murder it is less heinous than if you freely choose it. You are denying agency.

Straw man, due to you pretending I’m denying agency despite me telling you otherwise.

You can try to wriggle out of what you meant, but it was, at best, a poor choice of words. There is no strawman here. Just a refusal to admit your mistake. And you have only denied it recently.

77. Bob B

It’s obvious that the most effective policy for preventing crime is to lock up those most likely to commit crimes.

Especially if it is for such a long time it is de facto contraceptive.

78. Chaise Guevara

Actually, it’s obvious that the most effective policy for preventing crime is to lock up absolutely everyone.

Prisons are not crime-free you know.

80. ukliberty

But if it did, it would be full of shit?

It usually has methodological problems. So yes, even if it said something I agreed with and supported, it will still be full of shit if the reasons for doing so were not reasonable.

81. Bob B

But we can’t afford that policy when it costs c. £45,000 a year to hold someone in secure accommodation (on government estimates) so we’ll have to make do with only locking up those most likely to become criminals because of their family connections, upbringing or DNA. The savings from reduced crime make this worth while.

It costs that much now. For the high-quality accommodation we give prisoners. And especially for the costs of things like transferring prisoners to and from therapy and classes and so on. We could make all that much cheaper. We could move to dormitories. We could insist on group movements. We could insist on regimented exercise. We could ask them nicely to work. We could rely more on trustees. There is no reason prisons should cost so much or even why they can’t turn a profit.

84. vimothy

In other words, criminals understand that crime might make them better-off, but it is not possible to convince them that it will not; rather, their beliefs in this matter are set in stone, truly exogenous–an act of God, if you will.

Because it almost certainly won’t make them worse off. No criminals get caught unless they are really stupid. Even then they have to commit literally hundreds of crimes before going to prison. There is virtually no downside to crime in the UK unless you are close to being, well, retarded.

@94 vimothy:

This is an academic paper on the crime prevention strategy in Singapore:
http://www.unafei.or.jp/english/pdf/PDF_rms/no56/56-12.pdf

One of the suggested factors is that Singapore has a regular Crimewatch TV programme which attracts high viewing figures – episodes of the programme can be seen on YouTube.

@95: “For the high-quality accommodation we give prisoners. And especially for the costs of things like transferring prisoners to and from therapy and classes and so on.”

A regular observation of the prisons inspectorate is that too little is done to address issues of the relatively high incidences of mental health and illiteracy among prisoners or skills training for employment on discharge, particularly so for prisoners on short sentences. This is probably why we read reports of a reoffending rate of 2/3rds.

@96 – “Singapore, being a city state”

Again, it’s not really useful for wider comparisons. And if we, too, were to be totalitarian and unworried about big brother…

96. Bob B

One of the suggested factors is that Singapore has a regular Crimewatch TV programme which attracts high viewing figures – episodes of the programme can be seen on YouTube.

Well there are aspects we might not want to copy – they abolished jury trials a long time ago. But on the other hand, maybe we do. The Europeans seem to get by with either none or limited juries. However tough sentences is something we should be looking at.

97. Bob B

A regular observation of the prisons inspectorate is that too little is done to address issues of the relatively high incidences of mental health and illiteracy among prisoners or skills training for employment on discharge, particularly so for prisoners on short sentences. This is probably why we read reports of a reoffending rate of 2/3rds.

This is just more blame-avoidance. The mental health figures are high because they are, basically, lying by re-defining what it is to be mentally ill. If you drink more than they consider reasonable, you’re mentally ill. I doubt many of us would pass this standard. If they did not want to learn to read the first time we paid a fortune for their education, they are unlikely to want to learn the second time. We have such a high re-offending rate because they are criminals. No other reason. All this lack of education and mental health problems somehow magically evaporate and does not stop them changing when they become middle aged. The vast majority giving up crime by the time they are 40.

We need to stop finding excuses.

98. Leon Wolfson

@96 – “Singapore, being a city state” Again, it’s not really useful for wider comparisons. And if we, too, were to be totalitarian and unworried about big brother…

Precisely why is it not useful? What it is about being larger that makes it uncopyable? This is just the last cry of the Leftist who wishes to avoid reality. But still, if it can’t work for Britain, why can’t it work for London?

@99 – Go read an economics 101 textbook, especially the bit about comparing apples with horseshoes making no sense.

And you want London to declare independence and become a totalitarian state? Right. No, more deliberate shill trolling.

@99: “We need to stop finding excuses.”

Meanwhile the reported reoffending rate of prioners who have served short sentences in 2/3rds. The Department of Justice needs to focus on that. Talk about “no excuses” is just so much flatulent rhetoric which achieves precisely nothing.

The reason so many prisoners are illiterate and unemployable is that they are drawn from a population that is illiterate and unemployable. Thus the solution is to educate the population rather than the prisoners per se. Prisoners go to jail to learn the difference between right and wrong, where “wrong” is that set of behaviour that society has prohibited. Prison is not school. School is school. There is no need to confuse the two.

100. Leon Wolfson

Go read an economics 101 textbook, especially the bit about comparing apples with horseshoes making no sense.

I know this is difficult for you Leon, but perhaps you could surprise us all for once by actually posting something of, you know, substance? Think. What is it about the size of Singapore that makes it impossible to copy their policies?

And you want London to declare independence and become a totalitarian state? Right. No, more deliberate shill trolling.

Singapore is not a totalitarian state. Are you asserting that independence is, in and of itself, a sufficient and necessary condition for Singapore’s penal policies to work? That if Singapore was still a British colony, even with the same laws and policies, they could not work? Fascinating. Can you explain why?

101. Bob B

Meanwhile the reported reoffending rate of prioners who have served short sentences in 2/3rds. The Department of Justice needs to focus on that. Talk about “no excuses” is just so much flatulent rhetoric which achieves precisely nothing.

That is irrelevant. I agree they need to focus on that. They need to start by making it clear to everyone that crime is the fault of criminals. The way to prevent re-offending is to lock people up for longer. We need to start with a recognition that making excuses for criminals and crime only causes more crime. We need a literal Zero Tolerance policy.

Singapore, totalitarian? I think someone has confused Singapore with North Korea.

Does North Korea have also have a low crime rate? I have no idea. Who cares? No one is suggesting that we turn ourselves into North Korea. But it would be nice not to inhabit a crime infested cesspit. I dunno, perhaps criminals could be taught to march and then we could hold annual parades where they would goose-step up and down Oxford Street in front of crowds of smiling, flag-waving children. Formations could sing songs about Our Glorious Leader, Nick, or Dave, or Ed, or whoever it is. Basically, a grand day out in the Capital. I don’t see that that would be any worse than the current system, at any rate.

What the argument basically amounts to is that any successful policy is unthinkable, because it would be mean. Singapore is successful, but only because they are mean. Well, boo-f**king-hoo.

@103 – “We”. Ah, well, good luck with the MPD treatment.

@104 – Or perhaps the critic is simply ignoring what totalitarian means.

“But it would be nice not to inhabit a crime infested cesspit.”

You live in Somalia then? Crime is by historical reference VERY low in the civilised world. In the UK, outside that sphere, it would be lower if we started to take rehabilitation seriously, as they do. We have massive numbers of prisoners because of the UK’s failed policies, in increasingly unsafe conditions.

Singapore is “successful” through a combination of factors which can’t and won’t scale, and a wilful blindness to the problems such as the poor basically being unable to retire. I’m sure you’re just fine with that, being a Tory, but…

Well, if you don’t understand what the word means, why use it in conversation? It’s just going to cause confusion. Singapore is not a totalitarian state. Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state. Singapore is just a state. Politically it appears to be a mix of parliamentary democracy and hereditary autocracy, with the weight on the latter, but whatevs. The point was that they have the same level of technology as we do and a different level of crime. Of course their institutions are different. Different institutions, same technology, different level of crime. Conclusion: institutions matter; technology, not so much.

As for me, I live in Manchester, which is not quite Somalia, but hell–if we’re handing out backhanded compliments “not quite Somalia” is about as backhanded as it gets. Can’t we do better? I believe we can. Proof: Singapore. Or, if you prefer: the UK, circa 1901. Between 1901 and 2001 the per capita crime rate increased by almost 5000%. [Perhaps this is what you mean by, "by historical reference VERY low in the civilised world".] Why not just turn back the clock 110 years? That would constitute a substantial decline. Possibly, poor people would be better off as well. If they are, I promise not to complain too much. We’ll still be able to hunt them for sport, though–right?

@106 – *I* understand what it means just fine. You evidently have not bothered to read my post, or you’d have realised that I was talking to you.

Long-term trends?

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/postgraduate/taughtma/mamodules/hi971/topics/interpersonal/long-term-historical-trends-of-violent-crime.pdf

http://www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/9780199205431/maguire_chap10.pdf

I could go on, but it’s pointless.. I’m sure you’ll read those just as much as you read my previous post. But your claiming figures uncorrected for under-reporting and changes in reportable crimes makes about as much sense as other Tory stratagems to disrupt sensible conversation with nonsense on left-wing sites.

“Why not just turn back the clock 110 years?”

Life expectancy: 48. I could go on, but yea.

105. Leon Wolfson

it would be lower if we started to take rehabilitation seriously, as they do. We have massive numbers of prisoners because of the UK’s failed policies, in increasingly unsafe conditions.

Well it would if rehabilitation worked. But it doesn’t so it does not matter. We can do what we like to prisoners and it will do nothing to reduce crime. Well we could execute I suppose. But nothing realistic.

Singapore is “successful” through a combination of factors which can’t and won’t scale

Such as? Name three.

The poor in Singapore cannot retire? What are you going on about Leon?

What is it about Singapore or the UK c.1901 that we should introduce in the UK to reduce the crime rate?

109. ukliberty

What is it about Singapore or the UK c.1901 that we should introduce in the UK to reduce the crime rate?

Actual punishment? Especially for youth offenders.

SMFS, what is the nature of this ‘actual punishment’?

108
Rehabilitation doesn’t work because the label is meaningless, there is very little done in prisons to change the mind of prisoners about their lifestyle. Hundreds of prisoners are kept in check by television, pool and snooker tables and various other activities, which are viewed as luxuries by the general public.
In fact this is the way control is kept, when you compare the ratio of prisoners to guards, the whole system is just a holding space.
Instead of sending people to prison for offences such as council tax non-payment and the silly sentencing for people involved in minor offences during the recent rioting, it would be more productive to really address the reasons why people re-offend. We know this is possible because there are some ex-offenders who now live useful and productive lives.

@102: “The reason so many prisoners are illiterate and unemployable is that they are drawn from a population that is illiterate and unemployable. Thus the solution is to educate the population rather than the prisoners per se. ”

I don’t agree. A series of studies found that c. 18% of Britain’s adult population have literacy problems but a higher proportion of prisoners have literacy problems and/or no educational qualifications as compared with national averages:
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/assets/0000/0422/Literacy_changes_lives__prisons.pdf

Rhetoric of the kind that the function of prison is to punish or to teach right from wrong will not address the high reoffending rate. As it is, Britain has the highest per capita prison population in western Europe or is close to that and that represents a real loss to the national economy, both from the public costs of incarceration and from the loss of output from prisoners not working as well as from the costs of trials for processing reoffenders.

The intelligent, inquiring approach is to compare Britain with other west European countries to see if they have more constructive approaches, perhaps especially those European countries with higher per capita GDP and more equal distributions of incomes.

The tough rhetoric achieves absolutely nothing.

111. ukliberty

SMFS, what is the nature of this ‘actual punishment’?

Well anything really. As long as it is non-desirable by the criminal population.

112. steveb

Instead of sending people to prison for offences such as council tax non-payment and the silly sentencing for people involved in minor offences during the recent rioting, it would be more productive to really address the reasons why people re-offend.

You think non-payment of tax is minor? You mean if I refused to pay income tax you would be happy with a non-punishment like a community sentence? No offense committed in the recent rioting is minor. The real reasons why people re-offend are simple – they are criminals and they choose to do so.

We know this is possible because there are some ex-offenders who now live useful and productive lives.

They choose another life style. We can’t make them do so.

113. Bob B

Rhetoric of the kind that the function of prison is to punish or to teach right from wrong will not address the high reoffending rate.

Sure, to quote Alexi Sayle, you have to do the dance too. Or specifically, follow through on the rhetoric and punish. The rhetoric is a good first start.

As it is, Britain has the highest per capita prison population in western Europe or is close to that and that represents a real loss to the national economy, both from the public costs of incarceration and from the loss of output from prisoners not working as well as from the costs of trials for processing reoffenders.

But it represents a massive saving to the public in the sense their DVD players are not being nicked, they are not being raped and bashed and they do not have to pay out for their own security. Jailing people is cheap to the community.

The intelligent, inquiring approach is to compare Britain with other west European countries to see if they have more constructive approaches, perhaps especially those European countries with higher per capita GDP and more equal distributions of incomes.

By all means – restrict jury trials, lawyers and the rights of the accused. That would work.

The tough rhetoric achieves absolutely nothing.

But it is a good first step.

@ 114 SMFS

“Well anything really. As long as it is non-desirable by the criminal population.”

Here’s some ideas for punishments criminals won’t desire: prison, community service, fines, criminal records. Oh, if only these punishments existed in Britain!

What is it about Singapore or the UK c.1901 that we should introduce in the UK to reduce the crime rate?

You can take any, all or none of the respective regimes’ policies, institutions or cultures. Whatever you take, just remember that the rate of crime remains a function of human behaviour. It is not bequethed to us from on high. It is not immutable, or a force of nature.

People, naturally, for the most part, are sheep. If you tell them to do something then they’ll do it. If you tell them to think something, then they’ll think it. I mean, duh. People are not philosophers. If you tell them that Muslims are taking over Europe, then they’ll form groups like the EDL, or go on the rampage like Breivik. If you tell them that it’s everyone’s fault but their own that they haven’t got a new plasma TV screen, a record contract and an entourage full of bitches, then they’ll take to the streets to get what’s due to them.

Bob B claims above that “tough rhetoric achieves absolutely nothing”. But actually rhetoric is what makes the whole world spin on its axis. Remember your Derrida? “Il n’ya pas de hors texte…” How do you think we got from 1901′s crime rate to today’s? Magic? The metro? And for that matter, what are laws made out of? String and washing-up bottles?

In the final analysis it isn’t actually a complicated process. All that is required is that we 1, be prepared to come down a lot harder on crime, and 2, actually come down a lot harder on crime. All the nay-sayers here are confusing the fact that they don’t want to with the (false, evidently) proposition that it is impossible to do so.

Two interesting papers on the Singapore criminal justice system:

http://library.smu.edu.sg/subjects/CrimeControlSpeechIndia(Final)24Nov06(4).pdf
http://www.isrcl.org/Papers/Hor.pdf

Brilliant – if they can’t get a conviction, they lock you up anyway.

@114: “Sure, to quote Alexi Sayle, you have to do the dance too. Or specifically, follow through on the rhetoric and punish. The rhetoric is a good first start.”

IMO that is just predictably infantile stuff from those who aren’t too bright and which doesn’t get anywhere near resolving the problems of Britain already having the largest per capita prison population in western Europe and the high reoffending rate, factors which impose real costs on the national economy.

What really exposes the stupidity is the recurring unwillingness to look to see how peer-group countries in Europe have dealt with crime and punishment to see if we might have something to learn.

The challenge in making comparisons with low-crime countries such as Singapore and Japan are their very different traditional cultures and the ascendancy of the Confucian social ethic in those countries. It feels very safe to walk around downtown Tokyo late at night, far more so than walking around many parts of London late at night or answering a ring at the door at night. A few years back, that UN survey found Scotland, and then England and Wales, to be the most violent developed countries based on answers to polls on whether respondents had been the victims of violent crime.

Bob@113,

That isn’t surprising: the population from which prisoners are selected has a lower level of literacy/employablility/time preference/etc than the general population, which is why the prison population has a lower etc, which is what I said (or at least, what I meant). Thus, target your education programmes at the population from which prisoners are drawn rather than prisoners per se. Criminals need to be taught that crime has unpleasant consequences and that society at large is not to be f**cked with, not that their criminality is everyone else’s fault and sorry we didn’t give you access to more resources sooner; here, have some biscuits, a free course in dentistry and a Playstation 3.

Wot Bob B said @113. Why don’t we give it a try? Why don’t we look at other countries? Why don’t we incentivise learning in prison? No-one’s suggesting we also give them teddy bears, Lovehearts and My Little Pony. No-one is suggesting their criminality is everyone else’s fault.

It is not controversial (except for some people here) that low socioeconomic status is a strong predictor of crime rates (for particular crimes). This does not deny agency; it is analogous to ‘education and affluence’ being a strong predictor of women choosing to have fewer children later in life. It does not entail being all lovey dovey with criminals, throwing money and Harry Potter at them. What it suggests is that a means of mitigating crime rates may be to improve people’s opportunities before and after they commit crimes.

No-one is suggesting not putting any criminals in jail. What people are suggesting is teaching illiterate prisoners to read and write and innumerate prisoners how to add and subtract. If they aren’t interested then they perhaps they won’t be allowed to use prison PS3s, TVs and another privileges. Some (not all) are interested if reports – recently by London’s Evening Standard – are anything to go by.

It won’t work with 100% of them. It might work with some%. Why don’t we give it a try?

@118: “Thus, target your education programmes at the population from which prisoners are drawn rather than prisoners per se.”

Why not look to see how peer-group countries in Europe deal with crime, punishment and reoffending? On the evidence, Britain has a relatively poor record of achievement in those policy areas and has much to learn.

I suspect that criminals in prison disproproptionately come from relatively deprived and impoverished neighbourhoods – as did those arrested for rioting offences in the early August riots.

Some schools are better than others but schools in deprived areas are likely to have challenging problems of long standing with maintaining discipline and attaining education standards with relatively low percentages of 16 y-os achieving the benchmark of 5 GCSEs with good grades, including maths and English. I much preferred to send my son to that maintained school down the road which has better average A-level results than Eton. It has long been my view that the most frequent form of middle comprehensive school is for 11-16 years olds because in deprived neighbourhoods that means the majority of pupils in the final year will be early school leavers and that will set the tone.

It will be a very long haul to reduce prison populations and reoffending rates just by improving schooling standards – which governments are attempting to do anyway. Tackling the problems of the low employable skills – and mental health issues – of prisoners will be more cost-effective routes. Very obviously, present prison policies are manifestly not working.

By all means, give whatever you like a try. I am merely the sockpuppet of a bored postgrad, killing time when he should be revising probability theory and learning how to use MATLAB, and have no influence on society or government, so appeals to my better nature are unnecessary. I do not find the idea that illiterate or innumerate prisoners be taught to read, write and add up offensive. I just think that the emphasis should be on teaching our lumpenproletariat how to do these things at an earlier stage in their personal development, ya dig? That way, maybe they’ll grow up to be something other than lumpenproletariat. But do it in prison as well. Hell, why not?

The problem I have with liberal approaches to crime is this: over the last century we liberalised our approach to crime pretty good, I’d say. If you could plot such a thing on a graph it would be a monotone increasing function of time. Now, the per capita crime rate itself also looks like a monontone increasing function of t for this period. Coincidence? I think not.

So, when people propose that the solution to our high rates of crime is ever more liberalism, naturally I’m a little skeptical. My preferred solution is to re-establish the difference between right and wrong in people’s heads, i.e., my preferred solution is cultural first, legislative second, just like the other guys’ solution, which is how we ended up at the dance in the first place. Since more liberalismm increases crime (statistically speaking, at least), maybe less liberalism will decrease it. Shirley there’s some room for experiementation of this sort as well? Or not?

114
Is there any reason why you keep mis-quoting me? I did not say that people who committed crime should go unpunished.
Most criminals do choose to re-offend that’s why I suggested that it would be a good idea to get them to change their mind about their lifestyle.
121
Perhaps you should also study the probability of re-offending within the prison population. And nobody is attempting to appeal to your better nature,- there are two ways of addressing crime, simply the right-wing way of more and harder punishment, which merely creates greater anti-social behaviour because it does not address the core reasons (y’now like in science) for the behaviour in the first place. But hey, we’ll feel better because the bastards will get their comeuppance but it won’t make our world any safer.
Or, the left/liberal way, which is to eliminate it altogether by actually looking at the reasons why offenders choose that lifestyle.and address it, because clearly our present system does not work.

there are two ways of addressing crime, simply the right-wing way of more and harder punishment, which merely creates greater anti-social behaviour because it does not address the core reasons (y’now like in science) for the behaviour in the first place. But hey, we’ll feel better because the bastards will get their comeuppance but it won’t make our world any safer.

The problem with this is that history seems to have disproved your thesis. If what you write here was true we should have a much lower crime rate than we had in 1901, since our whole approach to crime and criminality is massively more liberal–as liberal as it’s ever been. However, there is this rather inconvenient 5000% increase in the crime rate in the data. If this doesn’t disprove your thesis, what could? If the answer is nothing, then what you have is a religious, not scientific, attitude to the problem. There isn’t anything wrong with this, necessarily. But some of us would like a solution that actually works “in real life” (as they say on the internet).

@122 vimothy: “I just think that the emphasis should be on teaching our lumpenproletariat how to do these things at an earlier stage in their personal development, ya dig? ”

Yeah – but successive governments have been on about reducing the numbers of failing schools – those which can’t get even 30% of 16 y-os up to achieving 5 good GCSEs including maths and English.

By reports, the number of failing schools has been reduced but the hurdle isn’t really that impressive. There are very real continuing problems with peer-group pressures in downbeat neighbourhoods, especially on male teens. The news reports about how girls are doing increasingly better than boys in the GCSE exams aren’t new but this gap didn’t emerge until c. 1990 and the gap has been widening almost continuously since. The girls doing better than the boys are, on average, coming from the same social backgrounds as the boys so it’s likely that peer-group pressures are even more significant than neighbourhood effects.

No one in Britain has yet discovered a simple, consistent policy prescription to resolve this challenge. Least anyone think this is just a British problem, try this (terrifying) video clip about the gang culture in Oakland, California:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPwOTqkZvwM

Oakland is right across the Bay from San Francisco. UC Berkeley, a top notch American uni, is located in Oakland.

124
Crime figures were much lower in the 1950s and 1960s when unemployment was around 3%, so we can assume that this is one factor for low crime rates.
Crime levels were also low in the 40s, which may suggest that a world war might have had something to do with it.
Drug-related crime is more prevelant than in the 70s, which may have something to do with an increased international transport network
Prosecutions for unlawful abortions have significantly dropped since 1967, do I have to go on?
The narrative about crime might be more liberal but we are not carrying out the sort of interventions which go with it,

Successive governments are not going to solve the problem; they are the problem.

It’s obvious that more education for prisoners is a partial solution to only part of the problem. Basically, you are sliding rizla papers in between policies and claiming that you’ve spotted daylight. At the margin, perhaps it will make a small amount of difference to a small amount of people, perhaps not. Meanwhile, the world keeps turning and burning (cf. Oakland’s diverse wildlife). What to do about that? I want to solve the whole puzzle all at once. And for that, we need regime change (in the sociological sense), not some marginal changes to the way we audit 6FC. I’m proposing that we tell people to how to behave properly and strongly censure them if they do not.

Gasp! I know, I know, “totalitarianism”, just like in the good old days of 1901.

imothy,

The problem with this is that history seems to have disproved your thesis. If what you write here was true we should have a much lower crime rate than we had in 1901, since our whole approach to crime and criminality is massively more liberal–as liberal as it’s ever been. However, there is this rather inconvenient 5000% increase in the crime rate in the data

‘liberal’ polices the only possible cause of that increase?

115. Chaise Guevara

Here’s some ideas for punishments criminals won’t desire: prison, community service, fines, criminal records. Oh, if only these punishments existed in Britain!

If only. Well with the exception of criminal records and community service. Which do exist but which criminals have no objection to whatsoever because they carry no consequences whatsoever. You don’t turn up for your community service because you are busy out robbing people, who cares? Prison exists but only in the narrow sense of “if you are a persistent and extremely stupid thief who cannot think of a good excuse why you shouldn’t go to prison, you may do a month or two inside”. It does not exist in the sense it is a real deterrent due to the fact that it is simply unrealistic to think you will go there. There is no point fining criminals unless they are nice middle class people.

So I agree, if only the punishments among them actually existed in Britain. They do not.

126. steveb

Crime figures were much lower in the 1950s and 1960s when unemployment was around 3%, so we can assume that this is one factor for low crime rates.
Crime levels were also low in the 40s, which may suggest that a world war might have had something to do with it.

Except crime rates were also low in the 1930s when unemployment was very high and there was no World War. Which suggests whatever was going on has nothing to do with either unemployment or war.

Drug-related crime is more prevelant than in the 70s, which may have something to do with an increased international transport network

And the fact we have more criminals in society because there is a wider social tolerance for drug use. We are nice to druggies so we get more of them.

Prosecutions for unlawful abortions have significantly dropped since 1967, do I have to go on?

Wow. A drop of what? Three per decade? On the other hand prosecutions for Racial Vilification are up.

The narrative about crime might be more liberal but we are not carrying out the sort of interventions which go with it,

We have been carrying out liberal interventions for 40 years. They do not work. It is time to return to what we know works – punishment. Harsher, longer and above all more certain.

Again, we see that SMFS is arguing in bad faith and to disrupt conversation, and that facts are irrelevant to it.

129
Obviously you did not understand what I was getting at,- looking only at the statistics can tell you nothing, eg abortion was legalized in 1967 so women did not have to rely on back-street abortions, so the crime of unlawful abortion fell.
We need to look at far more variables than the recorded figures.
One interesting point is the increase in crime committed by nice middle-class people, like MPs expenses and shop-lifting.

118. Bob B

IMO that is just predictably infantile stuff from those who aren’t too bright and which doesn’t get anywhere near resolving the problems of Britain already having the largest per capita prison population in western Europe and the high reoffending rate, factors which impose real costs on the national economy.

Calling it infantile no doubt makes you feel smug, superior and otherwise good about yourself, but it does not advance the debate one little bit. Of course it would resolve our problems. As America shows. Jailing people works. Not jailing them does not. We have one of the lower prisoners per crime. Because we have traditionally not bothered to jail people and even now Courts will bend over backwards *not* to jail people, so they get worse and worse until we have to. We should intervene early, and with tough measures, to deter and reform. The real costs are those imposed on the community by crime. The only way we have to avoid that is jailing people. So we should.

What really exposes the stupidity is the recurring unwillingness to look to see how peer-group countries in Europe have dealt with crime and punishment to see if we might have something to learn.

By all means, I am happy to look to Europe. Let’s limit jury trials. Let’s take the gloves off when it comes to police. Let’s jail people, keeping them from legal advice, with little reason so that we can interrogate them all night without sleep until they confess. You think these are good ideas?

The challenge in making comparisons with low-crime countries such as Singapore and Japan are their very different traditional cultures and the ascendancy of the Confucian social ethic in those countries.

That would be true if not for the fact that Britain used to be that way. And Singapore did not. It used to be a very high crime area. It is not now. The Confucianism argument is spurious made by people who do not want to admit the reality. We have a choice. We can choose to be the early 1980s Bronx or we can choose to be Tokyo. Or you can evade your responsibilities and reality.

A few years back, that UN survey found Scotland, and then England and Wales, to be the most violent developed countries based on answers to polls on whether respondents had been the victims of violent crime.

So what has changed since 1904?

120. ukliberty

Why don’t we give it a try? Why don’t we look at other countries? Why don’t we incentivise learning in prison? No-one’s suggesting we also give them teddy bears, Lovehearts and My Little Pony. No-one is suggesting their criminality is everyone else’s fault.

Sorry but in reality you are suggesting we give them teddy bears. Because the prison policy making institutions, the people who carry out such policies, are not like me, or even like you. They are people who put prisoners before society. They are people who love criminals and don’t care about the rest of us. Which is why so much of their policies are based on teddy bears. You get rid of them and show that you are serious about trying and I will endorse it. It is expensive, very expensive, but it may be worth trying. Let’s look to other countries. They get convictions because people have fewer rights. You want to try that?

And of course everyone here is suggesting it is someone else’s fault.

It is not controversial (except for some people here) that low socioeconomic status is a strong predictor of crime rates (for particular crimes). This does not deny agency

As long as you claim it is a predictor. Not that poor people are “driven” to it. Notice that the correlation could mean the causation is the other way around – criminals become or remain poor. Law abiding people become middle class. You have not tried to show that is not true.

What it suggests is that a means of mitigating crime rates may be to improve people’s opportunities before and after they commit crimes.

And yet they cannot read. A basic task that billions of people have managed. One we spend billions on trying to achieve. One they have every opportunity to acquire. If they so want. They don’t want. Oh wait, I forgot, illiteracy is some other person’s fault, right? Not that of the children who skipped class? Not that of those children who were too disruptive to hear? Not that of those children who did not give a f**k because studying was for, well I probably can’t use that word.

So given they were too cool for school the first time we threw a billion pounds at them, why do you think that throwing another billion will work this time?

No-one is suggesting not putting any criminals in jail.

No, because we don’t already. They are simply defending that status quo.

What people are suggesting is teaching illiterate prisoners to read and write and innumerate prisoners how to add and subtract.

Because you can’t. It is not that they have never had a chance. It is that they don’t give a fuck. And you can’t make them. The British Army takes similar boys and teaches them to read. Very effectively. It is the largest adult educational organisation in the world with a roughly 100 percent success rate. What does the Army have that the prison service does not?

121. Bob B

I suspect that criminals in prison disproproptionately come from relatively deprived and impoverished neighbourhoods – as did those arrested for rioting offences in the early August riots.

Or to put it another way, criminals tend to be immigrants and they tend to be people who are not involved in the real economy. They have chosen their life style. They deserve no pity because of it. They need to choose again.

Some schools are better than others but schools in deprived areas are likely to have challenging problems of long standing with maintaining discipline and attaining education standards with relatively low percentages of 16 y-os achieving the benchmark of 5 GCSEs with good grades, including maths and English.

They do now. They did not 60 years ago. Well, less so 60 years ago. The Christian Brothers used to take such students and beat them into the Upper Middle Class. But of course teachers cannot punish now. The problem is that their thugs-in-training know that the thug life does not need mathematics beyond the basic levels needed to divvy up the spoils. So why bother?

It will be a very long haul to reduce prison populations and reoffending rates just by improving schooling standards – which governments are attempting to do anyway.

Especially because it will not work. There will always be neighbourhoods that are relatively deprived. The criminal classes will always choose to live there. They will always choose crime over hard work if there is no deterrent. And people like you will always make excuse for them – even when “poverty” in such neighbourhoods is the equivalent of middle class today. Just as “poor” today is the equivalent of middle class in the 1920s – when there was virtually no crime in Britain. This just making excuses for criminals.

123. steveb

Is there any reason why you keep mis-quoting me? I did not say that people who committed crime should go unpunished.

Really? What are you suggesting for people who refuse to pay their taxes? No jail time of course. A slap on the wrist? Some wandering aimlessly around a park on the weekend? Being told not to do it again?

Most criminals do choose to re-offend that’s why I suggested that it would be a good idea to get them to change their mind about their lifestyle.

By suggesting the next time they will be locked away forever perhaps?

Perhaps you should also study the probability of re-offending within the prison population. And nobody is attempting to appeal to your better nature,- there are two ways of addressing crime, simply the right-wing way of more and harder punishment, which merely creates greater anti-social behaviour because it does not address the core reasons (y’now like in science) for the behaviour in the first place. But hey, we’ll feel better because the bastards will get their comeuppance but it won’t make our world any safer.

This is liberal delusion. By all means, let’s study re-offending. What we find is that it is entirely related to the criminal and what is going on in his mind. When he is young and full of sh!t, he breaks the law. Repeatedly and without shame. By the time he is forty, he probably has some children he may see from time to time, a partner, he wants a house, he wants a home, he wants to spend some time with said children (or more likely some other children), and so he gives up crime. He will be just as illiterate, just as deprived, his childhood won’t have improved one little bit, but he will stop breaking the law. Nothing to do with society. Everything to do with him.

The core reason for crime is criminals. That is the only thing science tells us.

Or, the left/liberal way, which is to eliminate it altogether by actually looking at the reasons why offenders choose that lifestyle.and address it, because clearly our present system does not work.

Our present system is the result of 50 years of trying it the liberal/left way. So we stopped punishing people. We felt their pain. We gave them chance after chance after chance. We did not eliminate crime even though we are pouring tens of billions of pounds into “root causes” every year. In fact we got vastly more of it. The solution is to abandon this stupidity and try what works. It is not to prove Einstein right by continually trying the same failed policies over and over and over again. 60 years is enough.

125. Bob B

There are very real continuing problems with peer-group pressures in downbeat neighbourhoods, especially on male teens.

And of course the fact that schooling is entirely dependent on the attitude of the children because teachers have no ability to make students do a damn thing. If they don’t want to, they won’t.

The news reports about how girls are doing increasingly better than boys in the GCSE exams aren’t new but this gap didn’t emerge until c. 1990 and the gap has been widening almost continuously since. The girls doing better than the boys are, on average, coming from the same social backgrounds as the boys so it’s likely that peer-group pressures are even more significant than neighbourhood effects.

Well part of that is deliberate. Western governments have been trying to increase the number of girls in higher education since the 1970s and so they have shifted to more female-friendly forms of assessment – abolishing exams where possible as boys do better in them, moving to school assessment as girls do better at that (that is, they suck up to teachers better), including essays even in the exams because girls do better at those and so on. It is not merely peer pressure, it is government policy.

No one in Britain has yet discovered a simple, consistent policy prescription to resolve this challenge.

On the contrary, everyone knows the solution – hand schools over to people who know what they are doing and take them away from the education Unions. If the Christian Brothers were in charge we would not have these problems.

131. steveb

Obviously you did not understand what I was getting at,- looking only at the statistics can tell you nothing, eg abortion was legalized in 1967 so women did not have to rely on back-street abortions, so the crime of unlawful abortion fell.

I understood perfectly well. You looked at what was more or less a non-crime and claimed that changing the law made an impact. It did not. There were what? Three prosecutions for unlawfully procuring an abortion per decade before 1967? It is utterly irrelevant. Had no impact on the figures at all because it was so insignificant.

On the other hand, Racial Vilification was either not a crime or was not as tough as it is now. So prosecutions for that were minor. The laws do change. We do prosecute more things now. Although we punish less.

One interesting point is the increase in crime committed by nice middle-class people, like MPs expenses and shop-lifting.

When society loves a criminal, it is no surprise that in the end everyone becomes a criminal. We need to be tougher with them too.

132
Very telling, now I know where you’re coming from, sad the old patriarchal, boys first, world has disappeared, you were born too late. Get over it.

@134 – No, he’s coming from a communication section of a Tory-run government department. It’s amazing what being paid to disrupt the opposition’s conversation does.

@ 129 SMFS

“If only. Well with the exception of criminal records and community service. Which do exist but which criminals have no objection to whatsoever because they carry no consequences whatsoever.”

A criminal record will severely harm your future job options. That sounds like a fairly major consequence to me.

“You don’t turn up for your community service because you are busy out robbing people, who cares?”

The people who jail you for failure to comply?

“Prison exists but only in the narrow sense of “if you are a persistent and extremely stupid thief who cannot think of a good excuse why you shouldn’t go to prison, you may do a month or two inside”. It does not exist in the sense it is a real deterrent due to the fact that it is simply unrealistic to think you will go there.”

Except that we have rather a high number of people in prison, some of them for such outrageous crimes as writing sarcastic drunken messages online, or stealing a bottle of water.

“There is no point fining criminals unless they are nice middle class people.”

We’re talking about deterrents here, not the amount of money given to the state, so please explain why middle-class people can’t afford fines when working-class people can.

SMFS, I know you can be rational, because you usually are. So please try to return to the facts instead of submitting this fantastical rant based on your personal prejudices. I’m expecting the phrase “holiday camps” and possibly “because Jeremy Clarkson told me so” to emerge any moment now. Get it together.

136. Chaise Guevara

A criminal record will severely harm your future job options. That sounds like a fairly major consequence to me.

Not in my neck of the woods it won’t. It may in yours but most of these thugs won’t be applying for security passes to work for the Foreign Office. They will be lucky if they get to drive a taxi. And remember that having a criminal record does help in other ways – there is a vast industry set up to help people coming out of prison to find work.

The people who jail you for failure to comply?

How many people were jailed last year in Britain for said failure?

Except that we have rather a high number of people in prison, some of them for such outrageous crimes as writing sarcastic drunken messages online, or stealing a bottle of water.

Otherwise known as the worst mass criminal riots we have seen in Britain for some time. I see we locked some guy up for planning another 7-7 and he did all of what? Three years? We have a high number of people in prison because we have so many people who should be in prison. They get to spend a month or two there and then they get out and are replaced by someone else. For a month or two. Before they are back again.

We’re talking about deterrents here, not the amount of money given to the state, so please explain why middle-class people can’t afford fines when working-class people can.

Middle and working class people can. The underclass cannot. So they simply point that out to the Court and the Court thinks again. You need to get out more and meet people in this situation.

120. ukliberty

Why don’t we give it a try? Why don’t we look at other countries? Why don’t we incentivise learning in prison? No-one’s suggesting we also give them teddy bears, Lovehearts and My Little Pony. No-one is suggesting their criminality is everyone else’s fault.

Sorry but in reality you are suggesting we give them teddy bears.

No, I’m not.

Because the prison policy making institutions, the people who carry out such policies, are not like me, or even like you. They are people who put prisoners before society. They are people who love criminals and don’t care about the rest of us.

Rubbish. Christ, you’re nearly as bad as Wolfson sometimes.

Which is why so much of their policies are based on teddy bears. You get rid of them and show that you are serious about trying and I will endorse it. It is expensive, very expensive, but it may be worth trying. Let’s look to other countries. They get convictions because people have fewer rights. You want to try that?

I need more information.

And of course everyone here is suggesting it is someone else’s fault.

No they aren’t.

What it suggests is that a means of mitigating crime rates may be to improve people’s opportunities before and after they commit crimes.

And yet they cannot read. A basic task that billions of people have managed. One we spend billions on trying to achieve. One they have every opportunity to acquire. If they so want. They don’t want. Oh wait, I forgot, illiteracy is some other person’s fault, right? Not that of the children who skipped class? Not that of those children who were too disruptive to hear? Not that of those children who did not give a f**k because studying was for, well I probably can’t use that word.

So if you were dictator for a day you would not give people a second chance to change their minds about decisions they made when they were children? Lovely.

So given they were too cool for school the first time we threw a billion pounds at them, why do you think that throwing another billion will work this time?

Because some people regret decisions they make – we don’t always get things right first time. It would be nice to live in a society where one isn’t FFL because of poor decision making as a child.

No-one is suggesting not putting any criminals in jail.

No, because we don’t already. They are simply defending that status quo.

Um, we do put some criminals in jail…

@138 – “Christ, you’re nearly as bad as Wolfson sometimes.”

Wah.

So, you hate both me (a left winger) and SMFS (a right wing troll). So, why are YOU here to disrupt the conversation? Thanks for making that one plain, anyway.

Wolfson,

@138 – “Christ, you’re nearly as bad as Wolfson sometimes.”

Wah.

So, you hate both me (a left winger) and SMFS (a right wing troll). So, why are YOU here to disrupt the conversation? Thanks for making that one plain, anyway.

I don’t “hate” you or SMFS. Why do you invent things about other commenters?

Is English your first language? Genuine question. It’s just that you seem to have reading comprehension problems and you don’t appear to understand idioms.

@ 139

“So, you hate both me (a left winger) and SMFS (a right wing troll). So, why are YOU here to disrupt the conversation? Thanks for making that one plain, anyway.”

Are you seriously incapable of seeing any valid reason why someone might disagree with things said by both left-wingers or right-wingers? Reasonable people judge each statement on it’s own merits, they don’t go “oh, the person who said that is on my side, so it must be true”.

Also, look up the word “troll”. It doesn’t mean “someone having the audacity to disagree with Leon Wolfson”. SMFS debates rationally and engages with what other people say. “Troll” describes your behaviour (e.g. constantly straw-manning people) much more than his.